Amar’e Stoudemire Won’t Return To Play In Israel

Amar’e Stoudemire Image by Getty Images
Basketball star Amar’e Stoudemire, who led the Israeli basketball team Hapoel Jerusalem to victory in national championships, announced that he would not return to play another season.
“Although I would have liked to return for another season, the team, coach and I could not find a role that I felt would allow me to meaningfully contribute in the way I have always been accustomed to play,” Stoudemire wrote in a farewell note on Instagram.
Stoudemire wrote that he would stay on as a shareholder of the team, where he would “help make [the] team even better,” and thanked the “entire Hapoel Jerusalem organization for giving me the opportunity to retire as a champion.”
He called Jerusalem “the holiest of cities,” and hashtagged his post #shabbatshalom.
The year has been bumpy at times for Stoudemire, who moved to Israel with his family last summer. Stoudemire has called his experience with the team “a roller-coaster ride” and didn’t always get along with his head coach or Israeli officials. Stoudemire also faced public backlash after he made what many saw as a homophobic comment on Israeli TV. (He later apologized.) Stoudemire’s son was barred from playing on a basketball youth team because he was not an Israeli citizen.
Stoudemire retired from the NBA last summer to move to Jerusalem and join the team. It was a professional move for him, but also deeply spiritual. Stoudemire calls himself a Hebrew Israelite and views Israel as a sacred land that is his ancestral homeland. He was baptized in an Israelite church in Chicago called Israel of God, and also produced a documentary about the Hebrew Israelites of Dimona. During his year in Jerusalem, Stoudemire ramped up his Hebrew studies.
Contact Sam Kestenbaum at [email protected] or on Twitter, @skestenbaum
The Forward is free to read, but it isn’t free to produce

I hope you appreciated this article. Before you go, I’d like to ask you to please support the Forward.
At a time when other newsrooms are closing or cutting back, the Forward has removed its paywall and invested additional resources to report on the ground from Israel and around the U.S. on the impact of the war, rising antisemitism and polarized discourse.
Readers like you make it all possible. We’ve started our Passover Fundraising Drive, and we need 1,800 readers like you to step up to support the Forward by April 21. Members of the Forward board are even matching the first 1,000 gifts, up to $70,000.
This is a great time to support independent Jewish journalism, because every dollar goes twice as far.
— Rachel Fishman Feddersen, Publisher and CEO
2X match on all Passover gifts!
Most Popular
- 1
Film & TV What Gal Gadot has said about the Israeli-Palestinian conflict
- 2
News A Jewish Republican and Muslim Democrat are suddenly in a tight race for a special seat in Congress
- 3
Culture How two Jewish names — Kohen and Mira — are dividing red and blue states
- 4
Opinion Is this new documentary giving voice to American Jewish anguish — or simply stoking fear?
In Case You Missed It
-
Fast Forward Trump’s plan to enlist Elon Musk began at Lubavitcher Rebbe’s grave
-
Film & TV In this Jewish family, everybody needs therapy — especially the therapists themselves
-
Fast Forward Katrina Armstrong steps down as Columbia president after White House pressure over antisemitism
-
Yiddish אַ בליק צוריק אויף די פֿאָרווערטס־רעקלאַמעס פֿאַר פּסח A look back at the Forward ads for Passover products
קאָקאַ־קאָלאַ“, „מאַקסוועל האַוז“ און אַנדערע גרויסע פֿירמעס האָבן דעמאָלט רעקלאַמירט אינעם פֿאָרווערטס
-
Shop the Forward Store
100% of profits support our journalism
Republish This Story
Please read before republishing
We’re happy to make this story available to republish for free, unless it originated with JTA, Haaretz or another publication (as indicated on the article) and as long as you follow our guidelines.
You must comply with the following:
- Credit the Forward
- Retain our pixel
- Preserve our canonical link in Google search
- Add a noindex tag in Google search
See our full guidelines for more information, and this guide for detail about canonical URLs.
To republish, copy the HTML by clicking on the yellow button to the right; it includes our tracking pixel, all paragraph styles and hyperlinks, the author byline and credit to the Forward. It does not include images; to avoid copyright violations, you must add them manually, following our guidelines. Please email us at [email protected], subject line “republish,” with any questions or to let us know what stories you’re picking up.